Enfield Jewelry Store Owner Stops Armed Robber

ENFIELD — A jewelry store owner said he stopped an attempted robbery Sunday morning in the Enfield Square Mall, punching the suspect and grabbing a gun away from the man.

Joe Furnari said the suspect, who police later identified as Jeffrey Hluchnik, entered Furnari Jewelry around 11:15 a.m. on Sunday, right after the store opened. The man demanded all of his gold chains and diamonds.

"At first I thought it was a joke and I asked him if it was joke," Furnari said. "He lifted up [his] sweatshirt and he had a pistol."

Furnari said he went to his safe and got the gold, and when he came back the man also demanded a bag to carry the jewelry and the store's diamonds.

While the man was looking at the diamonds, Furnari said, he punched the suspect and managed to get the gun away from him and pin the man down as police arrived. He said the whole incident happened within a minute from the time the suspect entered the store.

Furnari said he and an employee in the store at the time weren't hurt.

"The Enfield police did a great job and they came really quickly," Furnari said.

Officers, already in the area, responded quickly and were able to intervene in the fight, Police Chief Carl Sferrazza said.

Hluchnik was in the hospital for several days, Sferrazza said. Court records show that he was arrested on Tuesday and charged with attempting to commit robbery in the first degree, attempting to commit larceny in the second degree, first-degree threatening, carrying a pistol without a permit and third-degree criminal mischief.

Sferrazza said Hluchnik admitted to police on Tuesday he had robbed nine other places in Enfield, Suffield and East Windsor starting on March 23.

Police in Enfield had been aggressively investigating these robberies since they started, Sferrazza said.

Hluchnik was in court on Wednesday, and his bond was $500,000, court records show. He is scheduled to be in court again on June 10.